I Am Not Little Red Riding Hood

October 7, 2013
Although the title seems to promise a parody, Lecis’s story, written originally in German, has other intentions. He abandons the dread of the original story and reimagines the dark woods as a place of dreamy possibility. The girl in the red scarf meets a gentle polar bear, not a seductive wolf, and she looks for snow to put into her own basket instead of carrying a meal to her grandmother’s. Rocking her to sleep as he walks, the bear carries the girl off to find snow that’s “fluffier than the clouds, whiter than milk, and fresher than vanilla ice cream.” “Wake up, we’re here,” the bear tells her as he lifts her high in the air and twirls her around. “It’s time to dance.” Wolfsgruber combines etching with washes of color and collage, setting the warm white fur and great bulk of the bear against dark skies and shadowy tree shapes, the girl’s red scarf adding a stroke of color to every spread. Lecis reminds readers that stories are just that—only stories—and that they are theirs to remake as they choose. Ages 3–6.

October 1, 2013
The title is the most intriguing part of this sweet, benign but insubstantial offering. A small girl, doll-like, with bright cheeks, wide coat and striped stockings, tells her story: Though she wore a red scarf and took a basket into the woods, she is not Little Red Riding Hood. Instead of a wolf, she meets a white bear, to whom she explains that she is ."..collecting snow, soft snow: whiter than milk, fluffier than the clouds, and fresher than vanilla ice cream." The illustrations are soft, perhaps silk-screened or stamped, in washed hues of blue and gray accented with red. The bear offers to take her "where the moon hangs in the sky." There, they dance in the falling snow. The bear eats snowflakes while the girl collects them in her basket before they return home at dawn. "When we arrived, I gave the bear my red scarf. 'Where is your home?' I asked him. The bear didn't answer. He just plodded away." A toy bear sits in the window of the girl's house as the white bear flies overhead, red scarf around his neck. Though such an adventure in a fairy tale might hint of a more fundamental transaction, here it's clearly just a dream. Light as a snowflake and very quiet despite the swirling snow and the dancing. (Picture book. 3-6)

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November 1, 2013

K-Gr 2-Those hoping for a sassy fractured fairy tale will be confused by this picture book. After the first few pages, in which the red-scarf-clad protagonist brushes off any comparison with Little Red, the story takes a poetic and dreamlike turn. She does not meet a wolf in the woods, but a white bear, who takes her to where "the moon lies sleeping" to collect the best snow to fill her empty basket. All night, the girl and the bear dance, collect snow, and eat snowflakes; at dawn the bear returns the girl to her home with a once-again-empty basket, but with new wisdom: "The bear was right: I could look at the snow, I could play and dance in the snow, but I could not keep the snow." The full-spread color and line illustrations of the pair playing in the night reinforce the dreamy mood, and the winter hues make the cold tangible. As an individual story, this fable might be a bit quiet for the read-aloud crowd; it is better suited for a cozy one-on-one bedtime reading on a winter's eve.-Rebecca Dash Donsky, New York Public Library

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